Popular Science

Popular Science has been feeling guilty about the self esteem of "lesser" sciences. After all, why should the cool kids like Biology, Chemistry, and Physics get all the attention when UFOlogy is so much fun? In the interest of making everyone feel included, Popular Science has launched Unpopular Science.

They're also bad for mental health, but that's besides the point.

Today Popular Science announced that there will be no more comments section on any of their online articles. Why? Because according to a whole bunch of studies, reading polarizing comments in relation to a scientifically factual topic will dramatically skew the way a person feels about that topic.

Things We Saw Today

Today is Jim Henson's birthday, and in honor of that date, nearly two dozen of his puppets will now join the original Kermit the Frog in the Smithsonian's collection. So yes. This is Miss Piggy wearing the actual Hope Diamond. Piggy herself will go on permanent display, presumably along with Kermit, and presumably with the diamond back at the National History Museum. (Smithsonian)
Read More

she blinded me with science

Science in sci-fi movies is rarely all that accurate. We get that. It's OK. Space battles wouldn't be nearly so visually interesting if there weren't any impossible explosions taking place in a vacuum. But some movies take their disregard for the basic principles of science to the next level. And according to Popular Science, the worst perpetrator from 2012 is…
Read More

Japanese (who else?) scientists have used quantum calculation to compute a Fourier transform with an iodine molecule.

From Popular Science:

Using quantum interference – the vibrations of the atoms themselves – the team was able to run the complete discrete Fourier transform extremely quickly by encoding the inputs into an optically tailored vibrational wave packet which is then run through an excited iodine molecule whose atomic elements are oscillating at known intervals and picked up by a receiver on the other side. The entire process takes just a few tens of femtoseconds (that’s a quadrillionth of a second). So we’re not just talking faster data flow or processing here; these are speeds that are physically impossible on any kind of conventional electronic device.